


Let Your Success Be Your Noise

by limitedpractice



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Established Relationship, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Love, M/M, their old married couple energy is strong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25096798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limitedpractice/pseuds/limitedpractice
Summary: A Solar Architect makes something for his Medic, and has to explain why it's perfect for him.
Relationships: Grapple/Hoist
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	Let Your Success Be Your Noise

**Author's Note:**

> Just something I had to get out because I love these two together so much. 
> 
> 'The Master Builders' is one of my all time favourite G1 episodes, and inspired me to write this. An honourable mention also goes to 'Hoist Goes Hollywood' as another classic G1 episode. 
> 
> Grapple and Hoist are in their G1 forms here. But at some point I need to write them in their MTMTE Mutineer incarnations.

Work Hard in Silence, Let Your Success be Your Noise

++++++

“Look at what I’ve got!”

Grapple burst into Hoist’s office and strode directly to the desk in the corner. His arms were overflowing with blueprints, papers and storage tubes, and he brushed past Hoist without looking at him.

He dumped his stack onto the desk and immediately leafed through a pile of papers to search for the one he wanted. An empty tube rolled off the edge of the desk and thumped lightly onto his foot. He kicked it away and continued searching.

“Aha!” He tugged out a large blueprint and opened it up with a flourish. “Here it is. Come and look at this Hoist.”

Grapple’s eyes roved over the intricate artwork and condensed calculations and sharp mathematics he’d inked onto the blueprint for his latest design. He drank them in like they were lines of vintage energon.

“I say, Hoist, how about I mix things up a little and install twenty arched colonnades instead of eighteen winged ones at the front entrance?”

There was no response.

Grapple shook his head and chuckled indulgently to himself. “Just my little joke. No need to panic. Just because we’re stuck on Earth doesn’t mean I’ve devolved into a raging philistine.”

Grapple rolled the blueprint up tightly, and looked around for a storage tube to put it in. “Where are my storage tubes? I swear I brought some in with me but now I can’t find any. Hoist? Hoist?”

There was the sound of shuffling feet and metal rubbing against metal. A sudden squeaking sound was quickly suppressed.

Grapple sighed loudly and collapsed his arms against his side. “One day you won’t ignore me when I’m discussing important details with you."

He threw the blueprint back onto the desk and watched it unfurl.

"And when are you going to get that wrist component lubricated? Never, that’s when. I keep telling you to get it seen to, but you don't listen to me. There’s an old Earth saying about doctors being the worst patients you know. I suggest you dwell on that.”

There was no response.

Grapple spun around. Righteous anger coiled up inside of him, but when he saw Hoist looking at his creation his temper melted like a half-formed ice structure introduced to the midday sun.

“I knew you’d love it!” Grapple beamed. He stood by Hoist’s side and admired it as well. “So what do you think? And be honest - I welcome constructive criticism.”

Hoist was staring straight ahead, but Grapple knew that he was looking at him out of the corner of his visor.

Hoist cleared his throat. “It’s...rather big.”

“Well of course it is,” Grapple said, as if Hoist was a simpleton who was still learning the names of basic shapes.

“It’s a...bit too big for what I had in mind.”

“No it isn’t.”

Hoist rubbed the back of his neck. “I asked for a display cabinet Grapple. A cabinet.”

“And that’s what I’ve built for you.”

“This is not a cabinet. This is a shed. You've installed a see through storage shed in my office."

“No I haven’t.”

Hoist turned to face him. “I may not design cabinets and sheds Grapple, but I’m aware of the basic dimensions they possess.”

Grapple crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you now? And you know this despite never reading my plans? You’ve never once bothered to examine my schematics and fine penmanship and now you consider yourself an expert in my field?”

“I trusted you with this.”

“It’s perfect.”

“It covers the entire bloody wall!”

“So?”

“So I did not want a wall to wall cabinet shed taking up most of my office space. Look at it. It sticks out so far I can barely squeeze past it. And why have you painted it in those colours? I wanted it plain and simple, not bright and outlandish. Oh I do wish you had consulted me about this first.”

They both sighed in unison.

Grapple’s anger coiled and heated up again. He’d asked Hoist several times to sit down with him and go over the plans for the display cabinet, but Hoist always had a convenient excuse at hand to get out of it: Powerglide needed a check-up, Optimus needed a tune up, Bluestreak was missing both of his arms and Ratchet was neck deep in energon treating the other crash victims.

“Spit it out then,” Grapple snapped. “What’s wrong with it? I spent weeks on this, so the least you can do is spare me a drawn out dramatic lecture about how I’ve gone too far with things.”

Hoist turned slowly and opened his mouth to answer, and Grapple shot a hand out to stop him.

“I know I know I know, it’s too big. Your shed is too big.” Grapple shook his head. “I can’t believe you actually called this a shed. I’ve heard some preposterous things in my time, but this is a new one.”

Hoist didn’t respond.

Grapple glared at the cabinet. He’d worked overnight to install it so that Hoist would have a nice surprise when he arrived for work this morning. It was angled so that the center middle shelf would catch the morning sun that shone through the office’s only window, and was poured out of panes of glass treated with chemical compositions more advanced than anything he’d ever fired up into cybertron’s sky before. The cabinet was bullet proof, smudge proof, scratch proof, heat resistant and repellent to ink, paint and energon. Its edgings and shelves were painted in deep forest green, burnt orange gold and pristine snow white. Hoist’s colours were strength and elegance incarnate, and it only made sense that Hoist should see what he always did. The cabinet was a magnificent work of art and engineering, but its new owner didn’t care about it.

Grapple whipped his head around and opened his mouth but stopped.

Hoist stood rigid. His plating was tense and tight, and he was tapping one finger against his leg. His tow cable hung straight down his back, and his visor was dark. His visor was burning.

Grapple vented hotly and silently. His engine turned over and his vocaliser crackled static. He cleared it sharply. “Look. Hoist. I...apologise for the cabinet. I absolutely refuse to refer to it as a shed though, that’s an absolutely ludicrous way to describe it and I guarantee we will discuss this further, but I...apologise. I may have gotten carried away with my plans. I don’t think I did, but you’re not happy. And I know when I make you unhappy.”

Hoist unclenched his fist and looked at Grapple. His visor lightened and he sighed. “It’s not the cabinet itself. Truly it’s not. It’s magnificent Grapple. You’ve done excellent work here.”

“But?”

Hoist sighed again. He looked down at his fingers and flexed them. His neglected wrist socket squeaked in the miserable knowledge that it was destined to suffer for longer. “It’s...what’s inside the cabinet. That’s the issue.”

“What?”

“It’s what the cabinet holds as well as what it doesn’t hold.”

“What on Earth are you blabbering on about?”

Hoist’s wrist plating crunched together and abruptly cut off its hydraulic squeaking. “Space. There’s too much space inside of it. It draws the eye to what I’ll never have. I’m a mid ranking engineer and routine repair medic Grapple. I don’t have trophies or badges or fancy diplomas inked onto expensive scrolls. I’m not destined for those things, and this just reminds me that I’ll never earn anything worthwhile to put into it.”

Grapple didn’t respond. For one, two, three rotations of his processor and four, five, six electrical pulses around the periphery of his spark chamber he didn’t respond.

Then he strode out of the door.

He didn’t see Hoist hang his head as he left, but he knew that’s what had happened.

Seven, eight, nine pneumatic pumps of the huge hydraulics in his legs took him to the storage room next door. Hoist didn’t know he had the password to it, but he did. He was more observant and subtle than most bots would ever give him credit for. Grapple entered the room and ten, eleven, twelve flexations of his hands and he’d found the box he was looking for. He pivoted and locked the door behind him and strode back into Hoist’s office.

Hoist raised his head.

Grapple thrust the smaller box into his arms. “You earned this.”

Hoist took the box but didn’t open it. He looked into Grapple’s eyes and didn’t move. Grapple tutted. Hoist may have a visor covering his eyes and could cheat when it came to a staring competition, but when it came to determination and endurance he only had a pool of reserves to dip into while Grapple had an entire ocean.

After a shorter time than Grapple was prepared for, Hoist’s shoulders slumped.

He opened the box and looked in it.

“Oh Grapple no,” Hoist protested. “No-one wants to see this horrible old thing.”

Grapple reached into the box and pulled out the alien mask that Hoist had worn during his brief movie career. The cheap rubber was worn thin and punched through with holes, and the whole thing felt weird and smelled funny.

Hoist shook his head. “I honestly don’t know why I bothered keeping it.”

“I do.”

Grapple opened the cabinet door and put the mask on a middle shelf. He prodded and twisted it until it was perfectly centered.

“I should throw it away.” Hoist vented softly and tapped a finger against his leg. “I really should.”

Grapple secured the mask in place with invisible strands of electrum wire.

Hoist vented harder and hotter and increased the speed of his tapping finger. “I should do it now.”

Grapple closed the cabinet door and stood back to admire its single occupant. The goofy alien mask was almost lost in the void of empty space surrounding it.

“I wanted,” Hoist said slowly, “A small cabinet to display items of importance that I may one day hope to earn.”

Grapple opened up one of his pocket dimensions. He slowly, carefully, lovingly, pulled out something battered and broken.

“Oh, Grapple,” Hoist said softly. “I thought you left that in the rubbish dump.”

The little model Grapple had made of his solar power tower was covered in grime that wouldn’t come out no matter what he cleaned it with. It was riddled with chips and deep dents and sad crumpled edges, and was held together with tape and wire and hope. It belonged at the bottom of the rubbish dump.

“Here comes the sun!” Grapple opened the cabinet back up and placed the tower on the shelf next to the mask.

Hoist couldn’t help but smile. Grapple’s enthusiasm and imagination had always been infectious.

“There.” Grapple closed the cabinet’s door. “It’s filling up nicely now.”

Hoist looked at him with fond amusement. “You’re filling up my cabinet with junk.”

“One bot’s junk is another’s bot’s treasure.”

“Your solar tower looks like it’s going to disintegrate.”

“Our tower is indestructible. And one day it will shine again.”

Grapple brushed imaginary dirt off his hands in an exaggerated show of a job well done. He looked over at Hoist, and his face crumpled into a smile at the expression on Hoist’s face. “You’re a master of more professions than anyone I’ve ever known Hoist. Engineer, builder, medic, warrior, movie star, you excel at anything you put your mind to. You don’t need a fancy piece of paper or a carved cube of gold to prove that. You don't want those things anyway. You want the memories of what you've done for the people that matter to you. There's a whole storage room full of those memories. There are entire planets studded with them."

Grapple put his hand on Hoist's shoulder. He gently squeezed it. "Your accomplishments take up so much room they make my chest hurt.”

Hoist cupped Grapple’s face with his hand. He lent in towards him and rubbed his thumb along the transformation seam that ran down Grapple’s face like a tear track. “Thank you,” he said softly.

Grapple pushed his face into Hoists’s hand and kissed the tip of his thumb when it reached his lips. “You are most welcome.”

They stayed like that for a moment. For a long drawn out moment they stayed like that.

Grapple kissed Hoist’s thumb again and looked back at the desk in the corner of the room.

“A luxury theatre won’t build itself you know. So come and help me with these plans. Someone’s made a right mess of them on your desk.”

They walked to the desk and looked down at the plans. Hoist rested his chin on Grapple’s shoulder. “Magnificent,” he said.

“Yes,” Grapple said, pressing his face into Hoist’s head and leaning into him. “We are.”


End file.
